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Homelessness & Housing Help Hub (H4) location chosen · Kvetch & Release

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  Hey folks, we're back John Lidkey here on AM eight hundred CKLW. We've
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  been talking about this one all morning and you know, usefuler for us to
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  keep this conversation going as well. City of Windsor has announced the next step
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  in the H four Homelessness and Housing Hub. Two hundred properties we're examined.
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  Four specific expressions of interest were looked at as well, and after all of
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  that, administration tried to negotiate the purchase of a site unsuccessfully, they will
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  be using expropriation to move forward with the H four Hub on a seven acre
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  site to have at least sixty four to one bedroom permanent support of housing units.
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  And joining me to discuss right now is someone who is well aware of
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  this project through and through the Commissioner of Health and Human Services for the City
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  of Windsor, Andrew Daher joins me right now. How you doing today,
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  Good morning, John, Thanks for having me on, Thanks for joining me
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  here. You know this is it's big news. We finally have a location.
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  This is super, super exciting. I'm telling you, I wish I
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  could have you know now, just a year ago or six months ago,
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  but look, we're here today. And we're just super excited that we're able
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  to let the public know, the residents know that we have a site,
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  we have a site, and we know that it's going to be able to
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  provide a lot of support to people who are in need of it. We
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  were speaking earlier today with Windsor to comecy MPP Andrew Dowie, who was stressing
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  that this is not going to be a top down thing from the province,
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  that the city knows what the city needs, and that he's looking forward to
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  knowing that the process is going to unfold into a you know, a maiden
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  Windsor solution for the very real issues that exist on our streets. No.
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  Absolutely, and we have actually, you know, now that we've landed on
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  the site, we're going to be putting together our business case for the supports
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  and services that are needed on this site to our upper levels. Ago meant
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  to get additional funding so that we could augment the funding that the municipal tax
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  base and council has put forward already for this important initiative. And so when
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  someone who doesn't know much about what the H four is or what services are
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  already offered at water World, when we're talking about these types of services,
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  what are those what might they look like? Well, So, currently at
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  the Homeless and Housing Help Hubs or H four, we provide housing supports,
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  we provide addiction mental health supports, We provide justice supports, so we work
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  with our justice partners. And most importantly, the thing that I'm really really
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  proud of that we've really leveraged and actually brought to another level over the last
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  year is our health supports. And so we have a shelter health initiative that
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  we work with many of our partners throughout the community. We have a lower
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  limb strategy that we work with the windsor family health teams on. So we
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  have a number of supports and services working with a number of partners at the
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  H four currently could tell you those exact same services and more will be relocated
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  to this new location and will be added because, as you mentioned, a
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  seven acre site, three hundred and ten thousand square square feet on this site,
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  the sky's a limit. We could build whatever we want, We could
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  design whatever we want on such a such a large location and then focus on
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  those colocations of other services and other supports that are already being provided in our
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  community. So if we could just go back in time a little bit here
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  to twenty twenty when the H four was first opened up at water World in
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  May. By June there had already been eleven hundred unique visitors there, with
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  about one hundred and fifteen people coming by each day. Why was there the
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  need again to open this up when we did back in May of twenty twenty.
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  So actually this started during COVID and if everyone recalls that during that time,
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  we needed a safe place for these folks to stay. Most of the
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  businesses were actually closing. They had nowhere to go during the day. And
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  so this was a great foresight on behalf of the previous administration, my predecessors
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  that were here in Council that say, look, we need to open up
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  the site and repurpose a building that's already there. And so what started off
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  as more of a drop in center for people to go to has now really
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  ballooned into something super, super important as part of the community. And if
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  anyone's in the social services sector or you talk to anyone in the social services
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  sector, H four is the thing that's just kind of thrown around every single
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  time because the supports are there. People know that if they need the housing
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  supports. People know if they need the justice supports, they could go there.
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  They can trust the staff this population. In order to service this population,
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  you have to build trust and credibility. And I'm telling you the work
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  that the staff that the staff that they do at the age four, the
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  work that they do is remarkable, and they have built that trust. They
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  have built that credibility, and that's why they're coming back, and that's why
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  we're seeing numbers. It was an average of one hundred and fifteen. We're
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  now up well too, well over two hundred that are coming in per day.
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  Well, I mean, we identified a very serious need here in the
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  community back then, and it hasn't it hasn't gone away. And it's so
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  great that you know this has now happened. I know I'm going to ask
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  you the question I'm not allowed to ask right now, but I still have
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  to ask it. In regards to timelines, I know that nothing's set in
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  stone right now, but are there any Is there any semblance of a expected
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  date when we could see you know, construction or even finalizing plans or is
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  everything still just John, You're coming at me right now. We just announced
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  that leave us alone for a bit. Well, you know, I mean,
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  our most important piece here is the expropriation and working through that process.
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  But at minimum, at minimum, we're looking at three years, and I
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  can tell you it's probably closer to four at maximum maybe five years, but
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  at minimum we're probably looking at a three year timeframe. We have to look,
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  we have to design this, we have to figure out what this facility
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  is going to look like. And most importantly, and I want to reiterate
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  this, that this city is committed to continuing to work with the community and
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  through a console consultant or a consultative process, we're going to engage with the
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  neighborhood. We're going to engage with residents, stakeholders and really persons with live
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  the experience of homelessness and housing when we start designing and building this facility.
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  So that's really really important, and I just want to reiterate that point.
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  Well, I really appreciate you reiterating it and taking some time to share your
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  thoughts about this breaking news. Is it's a big deal. Last question I
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  have for you before I let you go. If we are let's say,
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  looking at you know, three, four, five years down the road,
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  that doesn't mean that the need is going to stop existing overnight, so the
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  water World site will continue to exist, service is going to be provided until
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  then, absolutely nothing will change there and quite frankly, we're continuing to move
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  forward with the new and better initiatives as part of the H four. So
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  well, I want to thank you so much for joining me to discuss this
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  very breaking news. Andrew much appreciated. Thank you for your time. Thank
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  you you as well,